Growing up, friendship has always been written in bubbly fonts with the occasional sparkles thrown generously amidst the vibrant background of round hills of grass with a yellow brick road meandering before a cookie–cutter castle with pink flags streaming in the imaginary breeze. Include a rainbow arching through the cotton candy clouds, and you have the perfect “Power of Friendship” slogan to plaster in the TV shows for children and posters to hang above their beds.
Slowly, the power of friendship slipped from the TV screens, and we began to exchange friendship bracelets tied clumsily, hooking pinkies with promises of becoming BFFs- Best Friends Forever. Eventually, rather than exchanging the snacks parents packed for lunch, you’re exchanging phone numbers and addresses.
Then came the late–night phone calls whispering and laughing under the covers about things that should never be mentioned in broad daylight. The list of contacts continues to extend over the years as you are forced to scroll through contact after contact to call your grandmother.
Suddenly, friendship is no longer as clear–cut. It is rare to have a singular best friend; instead, they are replaced with different friend groups with unique vibes and energy levels.
There are friends called your ride or die, and then there are those who are simply a wave hello across the hallways, passing down the hallway.
The age-old advice for finding friends has been drummed into my head after years of struggling with severe social anxiety- Just be yourself, and your people will find you.
According to parents all over the world, if you don’t have friends to pass the time, spend it trying to better yourself. Once you become someone you would want to be friends with, others will want to be your friend as well.
However, through many years of trial and error in and outside of school, I have realized that the friends who ultimately stay by your side are the ones who are willing to accept you as you are, whether you promise to change or not.
Anybody could become friends over time, and best friends are usually the ones who you have known for the longest time.
While there are many factors besides time that make a good friend, such as shared experiences and similar values, they would be lost if not for time.
Despite all of the work done to establish a friendship, every year we return to school is yet another gamble with the shuffling of friends and friend groups.
Those who are lucky end up in similar classes with lunches together, while others are thrown out of the loop and stranded with new people to face a new year.
Some can argue that we could simply use our phones as a means of contact or arrange for meetings outside of school.
Although those are both very valid points and many students utilize those tools, for some of us, these are simply out of the equation.
Some friends are constantly in a rush- hurrying from sports practices, to dance rehearsals, to tutoring or art classes, then dashing back home to gulp down a dinner before toiling over the piles of school work.
It is nearly impossible to request some time to just “hang out” with them without feeling as though they have more important places to be, and have only decided to humor your request.
Phone usage is arguably the best solution, yet the boundaries created with conflicting schedules could also be seen in late-night calls and spontaneous texts.
Despite it all, a screen with the illusion of a friend and the text message blurbs with echoes of their words is not enough to replace genuine interaction.
With more and more students turning to social media for the slightest glimmer of human interaction, they are starved of their meager gains, waking up the next day to the cruel and robotic beeping of an alarm clock.
School is truly one of the main facets for students to engage with one another, in brief interactions passing each other across the halls or gathering at a table during lunch.
Not to sound overly poetic, but truly cherish friends while you can before they become strangers with shared memories.